'I Care A Lot' Trailer: Is This The Rosamund Pike Performance We've Been Waiting For Since 'Gone Girl'?

Ever since Rosamund Pike's Oscar-nominated turn as "Amazing" Amy Dunne in David Fincher's Gone Girl, I've been hoping she would step back into the fun, pulpy atmosphere of that kind of thriller again. Now, seven years later, it appears that's finally happening with I Care a Lot, a new film in which she plays a scam artist who preys on elderly people but ends up selecting the wrong target to mess with. And thankfully, it looks like she's having an absolute blast on screen again. Check out the newest trailer for the film below.

Don't get me wrong, Pike has done some solid work in her post-Gone Girl career – she earned strong notices for her work in A Private War, for example. But I think she's at her best when she's working with heightened material, and this looks like the first time she's truly back in pulp thriller mode. I can't wait to see her chew up the scenery again.

Pike plays Marla, a grifter who has figured out how to take advantage of old people by dumping them in assisted living facilities, selling all of their stuff, and pocketing the cash. Dianne Wiest plays Jennifer, who at first seems to be the perfect mark – but it turns out Jennifer knows a local crime lord played by Peter Dinklage, who does not approve of Marla's tactics and is more than happy to explain that to Marla in a painful, unpleasant way. Eiza González and Chris Messina round out the cast, and the film is written and directed by J Blakeson, the filmmaker behind The Disappearance of Alice Creed and the young adult sci-fi film The 5th Wave.

Sadly, our reviewer Jason Gorber, who saw this at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, said the movie "fails on every possible level." Instead of capitalizing on the excellent premise, his review states, "we get a near slapstick, maudlin, repulsive film that tries to go towards the dark side only to dance around its most dastardly aspects. Pike's performance is two-dimensional and drifting, never once feeling driven by anything other than bristling ambition. A caricature of sociopathy, her hubris feels like a comic-book villain rather than displaying the kind of skin-crawling mendacity that's required."

Here is the movie's official synopsis:

A crooked legal guardian who drains the savings of her elderly wards meets her match when a woman she tries to swindle turns out to be more than she first appears.

I Care a Lot arrives on Netflix on February 19, 2021.